


Battle Wounds

by Duck_Life



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Childhood Friends, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Post-Movie(s), Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 07:33:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5618830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Rey hauls Kylo Ren back to the base, wounded and captive, Poe can't stop himself from going to talk to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Battle Wounds

Poe Dameron has a scar on his right palm from the time he and Ben Solo cut their hands and mashed them together, holding tight, letting the blood mix. Ben’s idea. He wanted them to be “blood brothers.” Stupid, sure, and childish, as children are.

Ben was eight and Poe was ten.

That old scar throbs every time Poe catches wind of Kylo Ren and his reign of terror. It twinges when he’s forced to his knees before the Master of the Knights of Ren, pulses as he spits out what he hopes are witty, cocky one-liners.

The whole time Kylo Ren interrogates him, that old scar aches.

He runs a thumb absently over it as he watches the Millenium Falcon land. It’s been a hell of a year. A hell of one.

Chewbacca hurries out first, carrying a limp form in his arms. Rey’s behind him, a wild look in her eyes, her hands shaking as she tries to tuck her lightsaber back into her belt. She must be a wreck, Poe thinks, noting the perfect way she landed the freighter. She must be a wreck, he thinks, but she’s still one hell of a pilot.

His focus shifts to the limp form in Chewbacca’s arms. He doesn’t need to see the pale face, the mop of dark hair. He knows.

Rey reports immediately to the General, tells her about the fight. It went quicker than she would have expected, she says. Luke is still tracking down the other Knights of Ren, she says.

She tells the General that, in the battle, she ended up cutting off Ren’s right hand.

Leia laughs harshly for a moment, without any humor.

Somehow, without really planning it, Poe winds up beside Kylo Ren’s bed, medical technicians buzzing around him like mosquitos. Soon enough, though, they leave the war criminal alone.

 _War criminal_. It occurs to Poe that’s who this man is, that’s what this man is, and it occurs to him that the last time this man was here on the base he was fourteen and skinny and used to race Poe from one end of the hangar to the other.

Poe sits and waits for Kylo Ren to wake up, and he sits and he waits and he wonders if he should leave.

He’s in the middle of thinking up a particularly compelling reason to get the hell out of this cramped and confining room when the war criminal’s eyes snap open.

For a long, long moment, nothing happens. And then Kylo Ren grunts and tries to move, falls back with a grunt of pain when he realizes the extent of his injuries.

His eyes fall on Poe, who’s watching his every move, watching him wriggle and try to figure out how badly he’s hurt.

“You’re really messed up,” he says in a low voice, well-aware of the double meaning in his words. Kylo Ren says nothing. “Rey really did a number on you. I need to thank her for that.” Poe can see the scar on Ren’s remaining hand, the scar that matches his own. He blinks just for an excuse not to look at it anymore.

When he opens his eyes, Kylo Ren is digging the fingers of his left hand into a long abrasion on his side. He winces, blood drips to the cot below him. Still, he keeps fidgeting with the wound, undoing what patching up the medics had managed to do.

“Hey, what the hell are you doing?” Poe says, jumping out of his chair. Kylo Ren shuts his eyes and claws at his own wound, wincing but not stopping. “Ben, cut it out. _Stop it_.” He doesn’t. “Stop!” Poe has to pull his arm back, hold him down.

Kylo Ren looks up at him like a dog ready to be put down.

“What the hell are you doing?” Poe repeats.

“I need it,” Ren hisses. “I need the pain.”

“What?”

“I just-”

“You need the pain,” Poe says, dropping Ren’s arm like he’s been shocked. Propping himself at the foot of the cot, he folds his hands in his lap. He doesn’t look at Kylo Ren. “You need the pain? How about the pain you caused the General? How about what you did to Rey? Or Finn? How about…” It hangs there in the air, between them. Years of counting shooting stars and playing sword-fighting and Ben Solo baking lopsided birthday cakes because there was no one else around to make one for Poe. It hangs there, the thing Poe’s not saying. _How about the pain you caused me_? “Is all that not enough, Ben?”

Kylo Ren glares at him, pale, his eyes bloodshot. “Why are you calling me that?”

“What? Ben?” Poe says. To be truthful, he’d barely noticed that he was. “Maybe because I’m the only one here who gives a damn if you live or die. Counting the General. ’Cept I don’t really care about Kylo Ren. But, God help me, I still care about Ben.”

Someone stares back at him from the cot, broken and bloody. Poe Dameron isn’t hopeful enough or nihilistic enough to take a guess as to who it is. “The General cares about me,” he says, quietly. “I can feel it. It… hurts.”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?” Poe points out.

“I wanted to be strong,” Ren or Ben says, shifting. “I just wanted to be strong.”

Poe scratches at the back of his neck, trying to think of something meaningful to say. Eventually, he gives up. “Who the fuck cares?” he says. “Who the fuck cares if you’re strong? You had a family. You had people who loved you. Your mother, your father, your uncle.” Again it hangs there, what Poe can’t bring himself to say. _A best friend. A brother._ “What would you rather have, Ben? You wanna be strong and alone? Or weak and surrounded by people who care about you? You turned yourself into a monster because you wanted to be stronger. Now look at you. What would you rather have?”

Poe can’t look at him. Belatedly, he realizes that he’s a little bit afraid. Everyone said Kylo Ren was too badly injured to pose a threat, even with the Force, but Poe’s seen him in action before. He knows what the broken man on the cot is capable of.

As he rocks forward on the cot, about to stand up, Kylo Ren reaches out and grabs his arm. He says it all at once, in a rush, like he’s worried that he might stop the words before they all get out. “I don’t want to be alone.”

The hand on his arm is warm. And Poe, Poe Dameron is strong but he’s not this strong. Not yet.

“Yeah?” he says, shaking off Kylo Ren’s hand. “Well, I do,” he says, and he leaves.

 

 


End file.
